Word Gatherer: Life in a Time of Saturn Rising

6.14.06, from North Country retreat, upstate NY:

Feel like I’ve opened up a channel into a wilder, fiercer version of myself somehow & I’ve woken up a deep, slumbering part of myself. Everything is beauty & shimmer this morning & makes me want to believe in God. Things are awake & alive & waiting to capture the page. I had forgotten about my creatve life & how rich & deep & layered it can be.

There are so many gaps & holes in our history that I forget, being immersed in my community for the last 5 years. It’s hard to see unless you have distance from everything. I feel I am here at Valcour because I am realizing in a deeper way what Suheir was trying to teach us, why it is important I don’t stop writing, how it is an act of resistance to put pen down on paper and write about your mother and all the people in your world. I wouldn’t be here if Maxine Hong Kingston’s book hadn’t grabbed me and said "listen." This story is your story or could have been, I am talking to you so listen. I remember meeting Maxine over 10 years later, looking at her & just crying & crying & crying & how she looked at me in understanding for a brief moment. She was the 1st role model who mattered, who spoke to me, a lifeline.

Today, from New Orleans:
First full day of volunteer work & 1st time back in the Treme community since the INCITE conference last March, one of the oldest free African American communities in the U.S. Feeling connected to our hosts, these strong women who are raising children, holding down their jobs or quitting their jobs to do the work they are really passionate about & committed to & finding other ways to get by, organizing on so many different fronts in their communities (and also nationally for some), trying to get by, cooking yummy food, dispensing thoughts & feedback on how to proceed with your own community work and still opening up their homes to random folk they don’t know. Was worried about my burnout & whether I would struggle with that here, but so far, I’ve been really inspired by seeing the kind of local organizing going on and the love and care that folks have for each other. (& people here generally seem a lot friendlier than the Northeast I’m used to). & the physical work of painting at the clinic was very peaceful & contemplative. I am really learning the joys of un-multi-tasking. & it was a treat at the end of the day to walk out & see a parade come down the street & walk along with the people dancing. Was glad to be back in this community, to see regular everyday folk celebrating and dancing and eating sausage and pork sandwichs and snowballs.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 3rd, 2006 at 11:20 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.